Frugal Friday

 Because I was sick for a lot of the week, we ate leftovers for multiple meals.  Not very exciting, but definitely saved some money. As a frugal fail, I did order a delivery meal. I used two promo coupons & it was still pricey. I was able to turn it into two meals for myself & one meal for Nick, so I suppose at least there's that. 

Saving on things we buy

• While I was doing my taxes (oh boy!), I found a $25 multi use gift card. I went online & redeemed it for a Panera gift card, which we will definitely use. 
• Used a $5/off a $25 purchase at CVS to buy some Valentine's & birthday items I needed. 
• Used a $2 Rite Aid reward & picked up a few Valentine's treats to add to the boys Valentine's bags.

Earning money

• I cashed out $40 from the survey site I use
• Completed a $150 user study on travel
• Sold a few items on eBay for ~$35 or so

Avoiding spending

• Really wanted to buy lunch out after running a bunch of errands, but reminded myself that I'll be eating out over the weekend with Sam, and we have plenty of food at the house.
• As the corollary to the above, used a Subway gift card to pick up food for myself & Nick on a busy day. No out of pocket spending. 
• M is taking me to the airport this morning for my trip to Corvallis, saving me the cost of an Uber. 

Eating what we have

• Used the lemons from our tree to make the delicious lemon pepper chicken earlier this week. Even my picky eater (Nick) ate it! Always a win when that happens. 
• Ate lots of leftovers (tacos, lemon chicken, etc). The tacos had the bonus of also using up shredded cheese & salsa in the fridge.
• Finished off a loaf of sourdough bread, making lots of sandwiches for Nick between soccer and tennis. 

For others

• Helped out at a soccer game with some volunteering

Frugal fail:

• I used Pirate Ship to mail a package to Sam, and it cut off the second line of his address (there is an extra line specifying his dorm), even though I added it. I didn't notice before I mailed it. It was never delivered & then three weeks later, made its way back to him. Wasted postage, and I guess I'll be bringing it to him myself this weekend. Bummer. Cautionary tale if you are using this service for less expensive postage. Now that I know, it looks like it's a common problem. 

What about you? Any wins to share?

February Goals

 The shortest month of the year is upon us! Time to get going on these goals. 

Financial:

• Continue to pay for Sam's college expenses
• Get a new job
• Earn $300 in side hustle
• Pantry freezer challenge:
• 1/2 freezer pizza
• A bottle of dressing from the pantry
• The rest of the holiday cheese
• Estimate taxes & figure out a plan to pay for them

Family:

• Continue to help Nick with final college decisions
• Have a great visit with Sam
• Optimize points, perks & miles for travel. Track value
• Finalize Spain trip details
• Enjoy Nick's senior year. Have a great visit with family when everyone visits for senior night (this includes lots of meal planning, prep, entertaining, house cleaning, sign making & travel logistics).

Fitness:

• Lose 2 lbs
• Strength train 15 days
• No S diet 15 days
• Average 12,000 steps/day
• Meditate 10 times
• Try a new workout

Personal:

• Language lessons 15 times
• Declutter 50 items from the house
• Look into a college class
• Get together with friends x2
• Play pickleball x1 (weather permitting)
• Do something towards my goals of "Try something new & uncomfortable" & "Say yes to more adventures"

What are your goals for February? Let us know so we can cheer you on!

January Goals Recap

 January simultaneously felt like a very long month, and parts of it went by too quickly (like, the parts where I was supposed to be productive!) 

Financial:

• Continue to pay for Sam's college expenses - yes
• Work on finding a new job - I have a new part-time, side hustle job & am still looking for another job. Had an interview this week, and continue to apply.
• Earn $300 in side hustle - crushed this, with $760. 
• Monthly freezer/pantry challenge
• 1/2 of the freezer pizza - no progress
• 1 can of coconut milk - yes
• Figure out what to do with all of the red curry paste - yes, used up the remaining jar & opened the giant tub in the pantry & made a start on that.
• Make second property tax payment (majority from savings, cash flow $1500 of it) - yes

Family:

• Decide if we need to do any college tours for Nick - Nick got into Boulder (one of his top choices), so we will be heading to Colorado at the end of Feb to do a tour of both Boulder and Fort Collins. 
• Optimize points, perks & miles for travel. Track value - we used points for an expensive flight for Sam, I'm using points for my upcoming hotel stay while visiting Sam & we're using a free night award in a few weeks at Lake Tahoe. All told, $1355 of value. 
• Plan Spain trip details & start looking at Italy options - I booked the trains for Spain, but we are moving Italy out to 2026. It's our 20th anniversary, but with Spain already in the cards (and, we are tied to a very specific timeline for that trip, due to expiring travel credits), it feels like too much to have two international trips in one year. We will likely go to Hawaii for our anniversary. 
• Begin remodel discussions - no, and realistically this won't kick off until I get a job & we see what our income looks like. 
• One date night with M - we had dinner & drinks one night in Lake Tahoe, while the boys had pizza. ;-) 

Fitness:

• Lose 2 lbs - I lost 3.6 lbs
• Strength train 15 days - 17/15
• No S diet 15 days - 9/15
• Meditate 10 times - 5/10
• Try a new workout - nope

Personal:

• Language lessons 10 times - 19/10
• Declutter 50 items from the house - 34/50
• Look at college classes (for me) - nope
• Get together with friends x2 - several walks, coffee & hikes
• Play pickleball x1 - nope
• For my "Try something new & uncomfortable" & "Say yes to more adventures" goals, start looking at opportunities for these - I agreed to go on an all day hike with a new friend group, but that's not until March

What about you? How did you do with your January goals?

(Not Much) Fitness Monday

I was sick for most of last week, and this cold is still lingering on! As a result, I've been much less active than usual, and have turned to easy & saltier food (why does salty food taste good when you're sick? I assume because your taste buds are kind of dulled, so therefore you need higher fat/salt food to really "taste" it, when you're not feeling well?) 

Anyway, for transparency (and, because it helps me as well), still posting about the previous week:

Weight: my weight stayed the same this week

Steps per day: I didn't do well on hitting my step goal this week, so my overall trend/cumulative average dropped. I'm now at 12,438 vs 13,019 as the average last week. That's a pretty big drop in just a week! Small steps really do add up, literally & figuratively. 

Calories: Last week my cumulative average for 2025 was 1,528. I'm at 1,509. My eating wasn't the best, but there were a few days I didn't eat much. 

Workouts for the past week:

• 4 workout classes
• 1 - 30 minute elliptical workout
• A couple of days with bonus 2 mile walks
• A couple of days where the only thing I did was walk ~1 mile

Overall nutrition: It was pretty poor this week. And, I tend to be a snacker when I'm stressed. I need to reduce my news consumption and focus on other ways to reduce stress. 

It was definitely a "C" type of week. Here's hoping this week is a week where I'm feeling better. 

Goals for the week:

• Eliminate stress snacking
• Eat more produce
• Keep calories in check overall
• Increase workouts back to previous level
• Hit 12k steps/day

How did you do with your health & fitness last week?

Menu Plan Sunday

 I didn't do much cooking last week, so you can see a few carryovers from our previous menu. 

• Friday: DH had the last of the chicken satay, & I had a bowl of popcorn. It was a rough week, with being sick!
• Saturday: beef tacos (I had mine over a salad)
• Sunday: garlic noodles with beef & broccoli (didn't get made last week)
• Monday: carnitas (from the freezer) over salad
• Tuesday: leftover tacos
• Wednesday: orange chicken + fried rice
• Thursday:lemon pepper chicken (the lemons on our tree are ready to be picked!) - also didn't get made last week
• Friday: I'm off to visit Sam, so Nick & M will be on their own. I'm guessing they will have pizza, if Nick is even around at all. 

I also need to menu plan for next week, when we will be having a houseful!

What's on your menu this week? Have you tried any new recipes lately? Share & inspire us!

Saturday Things

 I'm on the road to recovery, but still feeling pretty worn down, so today will be a taking it easy kind of day.

Here's what's on my list:

• Help Nick with a volunteering form he needs to complete
• Work on my taxes (what a treat that will be)
• Pick up the house
• Make tacos
• Get some exercise, even if it's light (walking on the treadmill, etc)
• Book Sam's return shuttle from the airport back to college for spring break
• Apply for two jobs
• Build a menu plan & shopping list

What about you? What are you hoping to accomplish today?

Frugal Friday

It's a pretty short list this week, as I've not been feeling well, & have that cough/cold/congestion thing that is going around.  

Saving on things we buy

• Nick has been sick, so I stopped by CVS & used my monthly ExtraCare reward to pick up a few things for him. I spent just under $10 after the discounts, and earned another $4 back between iBotta & Fetch. 

Earning money

• Earned $25 from a user study, and cashed out $20 from the survey site I use.
• Helped Nick sell an item on eBay. He made $185, and is saving up for his senior trip. (He wants to do a road trip to various national parks.)  

Avoiding spending

• Booked Sam's flight home for spring break & used a credit for the flight home (earned when I drove him to Sacramento at the end of winter break, and he caught a ride with his roommate). For the flight home, M used his Southwest points. The flight would have otherwise been $850!! We are very limited on time of day options, as he has finals, and then needs to coordinate around a shuttle that gets him from college to the airport. I've never seen flights to/from Portland that expensive. So glad that M had points. 

Eating what we have

• Made a delicious chicken satay dinner, which had the bonus of using up two of my January pantry challenge items (one can of coconut milk, the rest of a jar of red curry in the fridge & I started on the giant tub of red curry that was previously in the pantry). I also used some very wilty spinach in the recipe.  

For others

• Donated money to the fires

What about you? Any wins to share?

If you like Thai food

 try this recipe for slow cooker chicken satay! I had it on my menu plan for the week, and we ended up making it yesterday. It was absolutely fantastic! Highly recommend. 

A few tweaks:

• I added the spinach right before serving, to avoid it being super over cooked
• I'd also add the red peppers later in the cooking process, as they were overly cooked as well

The flavor was so great. We added additional lime juice & some sriracha. I might bump up the soy sauce as well. We topped ours with peanuts, and served over rice. It would also be great with chopped cilantro on top.

M basically dislikes anything cooked in a crockpot, but even he was a huge fan & asked for it to go into the menu rotation. 

Sharing as there were a few people interested in the recipe. As a bonus, it also helped me use up two of the ingredients on my January "use it up" pantry challenge - coconut milk & red curry paste. Winner. 

Happy Tuesday, everyone! Have you tried any great new recipes?

Fitness Monday

 It's been a bit up & down the past couple of weeks, as we skied & then I came back with a cold that's turned into some sort of respiratory thing. Nick has been sick for a week, poor guy. I'm slowly but surely getting back into my routine. 

Here's how I've been doing with my fitness over the past few weeks:

Weight: I'm down another 1.5 lbs, so a total of 3.6 lbs for the year. 

Steps per day: it's my goal to hit 12k steps per day in 2025. Skiing isn't much for steps, and we had two long driving days to get there & back. But, I'm still over my goal, with 13,019 steps/day (on average.) 

Calories: it's my goal to be around the 1400 calories/day range consistently. Last time I checked in I was at 1,594. My current cumulative average for 2025 is 1,528, so I've made a bit of progress dropping it down. Still more work to do here.

Workouts for the past few weeks: 

• 9 workout classes (including a bonus 90 minute class that was a wildfire fundraiser)
• 2 days of skiing
• 2 days with 4 mile hikes
• 1 day of walking for an hour on the treadmill
• Assorted other walks
• One day where I did nothing, other than pack & load the car, corral up 5 teens, pick up their room & do an untold amount of laundry

Overall nutrition:  I want to increase my fruit & veggie intake. I do pretty well on this, but there's always room for more veggies! I'm also still pretty snacky, and want to reduce snacks. 

I'm giving myself another "B" for the past couple of weeks. Still plenty of work to do cleaning up my diet, but fitness has been good generally. Goals for this last week of January: stay the course on working out (adjust as needed based on how I'm feeling), reduce overall calories & increase fruit & veggie intake. 

How are you all doing with your health & fitness?

Menu Plan Sunday

 I really phoned it in last week, and we mostly ate from the freezer. I'm trying to do better this week!

Here's what's on our menu:

• Friday - Nick had a late game, so I skipped dinner
• Saturday - chicken & dumplings (freezer)
• Sunday - slow cooker chicken satay 
• Monday - garlic noodles with beef & broccoli
• Tuesday - leftover chicken satay
• Wednesday - leftover garlic noodles
• Thursday - lemon pepper chicken (the lemons on our tree are ready to be picked!)
• Friday - leftovers

What about you? Are you trying any new recipes this week?

Frugal Friday

 

Saving on things we buy

• Stopped at Costco for some inexpensive gas & lunch for five on our way home. 

Earning money

• Made $20 doing a focus group on honey, of all things.
• Cashed out $32 from the survey site I use
• Got an offer for a side hustle/part time job. I'm still looking for a full-time option, but this part-time one would be fun, and is something I'm interested in doing full-time in the future. I would start in April. 

Avoiding spending

• Went through the boys room (the teens had an adjoining room to us) after they left for skiing. Gathered up the garbage scattered throughout to make things easier for the cleaning lady (and, of course left a tip!) & found: a few snacks, two sealed drinks still in the fridge, a glove (will try to pair this up with someone's lost glove) & an unopened container of toothpaste. Brought it all home with us, minus a few of the snacks & drinks that the teens were thrilled to see on the car ride home.
• Booked a flight to visit Sam using an airline gift card (bought at a discount at Costco around the holidays) + two nights of a hotel stay, using hotel points. 
• Booked a college tour trip with Nick. Staying with a friend, and used Southwest gift cards (bought at a discount at Costco as well), and a small travel voucher that Nick had. 

Eating what we have:

• Got home after a relatively long drive from Lake Tahoe, and then unpacked the car. No one was particularly in the mood to make dinner, but I threw together a quick salad, baked some coconut shrimp, and heated up edamame (my favorite way is with a little sesame oil & kosher salt.) 
• I've been phoning it in with menu planning, so we've been eating a lot from the freezer. We had chicken teriyaki one night (freezer leftovers), as well as grilled burgers (from the freezer as well). We had the burgers over salads.
• For lunches, I've also been taking advantage of the soups I made & froze earlier in the month.
• I used overly ripe bananas to make banana bread for an event Nick is going to, and also banana muffins for our freezer. 

For others

• Planned and coordinated a social event for the soccer team. Nick is the captain, so some of this fun work falls to me. ;-) 

What about you? Any wins to share? 

Travel planning

Lots going on around here, with Nick in the middle of the school soccer season. Once that ends, we will move on to school tennis, most likely. I'm also talking to a lot of people about various jobs. Networking and applications and interview prep/research is a lot of time!

I also just planned two trips over the last week. One is a trip to visit Sam at college for his birthday, and the second is to take Nick on two admitted students visits in Colorado. Luckily, we can combine Fort Collins and Boulder.

With a look at financial optimization, here's what I'm doing to keep the costs under control:

• Used points to book the two nights at a hotel in Corvallis (Sam's visit)
• Used a gift card (purchased on sale at Costco over the holidays) to book the flight to Portland
• Staying with a friend for the Colorado visit
• Used a small Southwest voucher ($50) + Southwest gift cards (also purchased on sale at Costco over the holidays) for the flights to Denver.

I'll need to rent a car for both trips, so that will add to the cost, in addition to food, etc.

What is everyone else up to? Any fun projects you are working on? 

Favorite hummus recipe

 I'm behind on comments, but wanted to answer the request from Marcia, who asked for my preferred hummus recipe. This is the one we use. 

It's quick & easy, and I've been making it for years. Hope you enjoy! 

Also, a photo from a gorgeous run at Heavenly.

Frugal Friday

 We are once again heading skiing for the long weekend, along with a few bonus teens! Here are a few frugal wins along the way. 

Saving on things we buy

• Picked up the Friday Freebie (an energy drink, which no one here drinks, but will inevitably get used up during one of our many hosting activities), and also used a $5 off coupon at the store. Bought some cheese on sale, uploaded my receipt to Fetch (earning $2) & bought 2 Home Depot gift cards, earning $20 in future store rewards. 
• I noticed that I hadn't earned credit on our second room during our ski trip reservations, so I reached out to Hyatt to ask them to look at it. I was correct, and they retroactively added credit. Because I was close to a milestone of nights stayed, the difference was worth 10,000 points, or approximately $230 of value. We will definitely use those points to book future travel. 

Earning money

• Gave away the last of my expiring United plus points to one of M's coworkers, and the upgrade cleared. He was thrilled, as it was a long flight, & thanked us with a $150 gift card.
• Redeemed $25 of survey cashout from the site I use (Prolific). These are actually rarely surveys, and typically instead research studies from universities. 

Avoiding spending

• Nick asked for takeout after a late soccer game. I knew I had a Panera gift card, but not enough for both of us. I ordered him a pickup meal, and made myself soup & fruit. While not "perfect", it was better than both of us eating out. Mine was a little more nutritionally motivated, as I'm obsessed with Panera's frosted sugar cookies & they are extremely high in calories. ;-) I hadn't just played 2.5 hours of soccer, so I had less wiggle room with my calories. 
• Made a triple batch of chocolate chip cookies & a large loaf of banana bread for our upcoming ski trip, to save a bit of money on snacks. 

Eating what we have

• Made a delicious zuppa toscano soup to use up some really old potatoes, as well as some sausage from the freezer. Had everything on hand for the recipe, minus the spinach (subbed for kale). This made a ton, which will keep me in lunch leftovers for quite a while. I also avoided by the cream & subbed in whole milk yogurt (leftover from our shawarma dinner), plus some milk & butter. It was absolutely fantastic, even with the subs. I also skipped the bacon, as I didn't have that. 
• Made another batch of hummus, as Nick loved the first batch so much, and requested that + veggies with every meal. Who am I to say no to a kid who wants veggies & hummus? I often have it on salads. And, our lemon tree is about to be ripe, which means one of the ingredients we buy for this recipe will be "free" to us for a while. Yay!
• Made the Frugal Girl French bread recipe for Nick, as he's hard to keep fed these days. I had an extra envelope of yeast left over from my holiday bread, so I wanted to use it before it expired.
• Ate lots of fresh fruits & veggies we had on hand, and topped my salads with feta leftover from our chicken shawarma dinner
• Nick hosted another impromptu poker night with 10+ teens on Saturday, so I looked around the house to see what we had available. I baked up a large bag of mozzarella sticks (this is the reason we have random snack food on hand) & set out the last of our Trader Joes cookies, purchased for the ski trip. We also had lots of drinks, and I continued to use the large pack of paper products I purchased for teen parties. 
• Used up some celery that was very close to needing to be tossed & made crockpot chicken & dumplings. This is one of my favorite soup recipes to keep in the freezer for easy lunches on chilly days. 
• The chocolate chip cookies & banana bread for the ski trip used up: the last of a bag of chocolate chips my mom bought while she was here, and some bananas from the freezer. Bonus, M makes Nick a bowl of fruit each day for "dessert". Nick ended up being out late at the climbing gym, and won't eat brown bananas. I pulled out the bananas from his fruit bowl & used those in the bread as well. I ate the rest of the fruit as my lunch, as moms often do. ;-) 

For others

• One of my parents friends are struggling financially, after a long history of living well beyond their means. I've provided a few suggestions upon request about options to clean things up as best they can, while increasing their income a bit. 
• Helped a friend with a job search. 
• Continued my volunteer work

What about you? Any wins to share? 

Fitness Monday

I've been getting back into the groove of health & fitness after a bunch of holiday indulgences. Generally, that's going well, although not perfect! 

Weight: I've dropped two pounds since the beginning of the year, although it's fair to say the original weight was probably overly "inflated", due to eating out & the like while skiing. Still, it gives me a good starting point for my plans. 

Steps per day: It's my goal to hit 12k steps per day in 2025. I'm off to a good start with a daily average of 12,721. I have a few outlier days in either direction (low steps & high steps), but generally this is going well. Ski days & the like will be a problem, as my watch doesn't recognize skiing as "steps". ;-) 

Calories per day: I'd like to be in the 1400 range consistently, and see how my weight adapts from there. My average calories per day is 1,594, so higher than I'd like. I had a few high days at the beginning of the year, and one day on Friday. Otherwise, this is generally going okay. I am tracking regularly, which makes it very helpful to see trends, and also reminds me of the goals. 

Workouts for the week:

• 5 days of Orange Theory (a 60 minute combo cardio + strength class)
• 2 hikes (one 6ish miles, one 7)

Overall nutrition: I'm eating well in general. I can still cut out some "snacky" calories, and I can also improve my "No S" diet, as I've had sweets a couple of times.

I'm giving myself a "B" for the past week. This week will be more challenging to stay on track, as we are skiing & staying in a hotel. The skiing itself is great exercise, but driving to Lake Tahoe & back means lots of time sitting. We will also be eating out for the trip, and food on mountain is rarely very healthy. I'll have to experiment with some different options this weekend.  

What about you? How are you doing with your health & fitness this week?

Menu Plan Sunday

 Making a menu plan helps me keep our grocery budget (a bit more) in check, and ensure we reduce/eliminate food waste. Here's what's on the menu at our house. 

• Friday - zuppa toscana soup (delicious!) 
• Saturday - crockpot chicken & dumplings
• Sunday - garlic shrimp & edamame
• Monday - Korean beef & rice
• Tuesday -  leftover chicken & dumplings (the rest to the freezer)
• Wednesday - creamy garlic chicken
• Thursday - wrap up any leftovers
• Friday - slow cooker chicken satay & rice

What about you? What's on your menu for the week?

Grocery store spending

 I'm trying to keep a close eye on our grocery spending, while ensuring we eat well. For this Costco trip, I managed to stick entirely to our list, with one exception. The spring rolls were on sale for $6.99 for a large box. We keep them on hand for dinners where we need something else to round out the meal (e.g. we have a small amount of grilled chicken, but no other sides). 

Here's what we bought/spent:

• Salmon - $15.48
• English Cucumbers - $6.99
• Mini cucumbers - $6.99 (Nick's top request)
• Carrots - $5.99
• Broccoli - $5.99
• Cauliflower - $6.99 - expensive! I need to look for a cheaper source. It's M's top request.
• Spinach - $4.49
• Tomatoes - $7.49
• Pineapple - $3.99
• Bananas - $2.49
• Romaine lettuce - $4.99
• Apples - $8.99
• Pears - $9.99 
• Veggie spring rolls - $6.99
• Onions - $5.49

Total = $103.34

We weren't out of any dairy or meat this week, and (mostly) stayed on track with the prepared food. So, overall this was a good trip, despite the overall cost of items Those pears are killing me!

Frugal Friday

 We're getting into the swing of January, and trying to keep things in check as we make our second property tax payment. We will pull from savings (as planned) for most of it, but would also like to cash flow what we can. 

Saving on things we buy

• Drove Sam to Sacramento (2ish hours each way) to meet up with his roommate for a ride back to college. This saves: his return flight back (now a Southwest credit), his shuttle from the PDX airport (now a future credit), and sending his skis via the mail, as the shuttle won't accept skis. Getting up at 4:30 wasn't that fun, but we made it work. His roommate's mom drove the boys & their gear back. Saved approximately $225. 

Earning money

• I sold a pair of M's shoes that he didn't like for $35 on eBay & a pair of my shoes on eBay for $20.
• Cashed in some change I had lingering around & redeemed it for a Starbucks gift card, which I immediately applied to my account for a future coffee. I don't go to Starbucks often, but tend to go there in two scenarios: meeting a friend after a workout, or when traveling. It's nice to have the money on my account when I need it. 
• I sold a jacket on eBay for $25. 
• Cashed in money for the survey site I use & made $15. 

Avoiding spending

• I own two pair of ski base layers, and when we were skiing over the holidays, I could only find one. We had no laundry, so wearing them for three days required some creative sink washing/blow drying & I wish to avoid that in the future. When I got home, I ordered myself a two pack off of Costco for $15. And, while the price is absolutely right, when washing all of Nick's ski gear, I discovered that a pair of my base layer pants were in his bag. So, no additional purchase needed, and back these went to Costco. 
• Met a friend at my old office for a free lunch (she works there). 

Eating what we have

• Defrosted some naan bread to go with chicken shawarma one night. It was part of the December challenge to use it up, but better late than never!
• Made homemade hummus to use up some garbanzo beans. It's always delicious & I wonder why I don't make it more often. My preferred recipe here. 
• Had soup from the freezer for a lunch one day.

For others

• Helped a friend out with a networking project. 

A week of spending

 I used to do snapshots of spending for a week, which can be fun to look back on. Here's what we spent the first week of January:

• Groceries - $362. We were out of pretty much everything, so we stocked up the fridge. This included chicken, ground beef, fresh veggies, milk, etc.
• Vitamins - $15.09
• Toilet paper + a year's supply of water filters (we categorize these items under "house") - $66.51
• An eye compress on Amazon - $20.95. The secondary autoimmune disease I have causes lots of eye dryness. Throw in a head cold, and I'm pretty miserable. The doctor recommended this ahead of drops, so fingers crossed. 
• Prescription - $9.72
• Oil (M changes the oil in our cars) - $35.93
• Car tags - $474.07
• Tickets to the Alhambra in Spain (April trip) - $41.32

Total spent = $1025.59

It was a very expensive week, and the only "fun" item on our list were the tour tickets for our April trip. 

2025 Spend Category Changes

 Sadly, I don't have the full breakout of my 2023 expense category totals (it was on my work laptop, and I lost access when I left), but I do know we spent less in 2024 than in 2023. I'll be curious to see how things play out in 2025. While we largely have two major expenses already planned (college for both boys!), I wanted to take a closer look at our 2024 categories & see if any can use tweaking or revising in 2025. 

Areas where I expect us to spend less in 2025:

• Groceries. I'm expecting our grocery budget to drop a bit in 2025, as Sam will be out of the house for 8ish months of the year, and Nick will be out for the last 3ish months. That's a large chunk of our grocery budget between the teens.
• Gas. Sam doesn't have his car at college, so I'm expecting our gas bill to drop a bit.
• Boys "all" - this is a category that covers a huge variety of expenses, but we did see a drop from 2023 to 2024, as things like club soccer for Sam dropped off of our expenses. Nick finished his last season of club soccer in the fall of 2024. He will be playing high school soccer & tennis, but those are much less expensive than club sports. He will have graduation expenses & the like, but I'm still expecting this category to drop in 2025, as more of our spending shifts to college expenses. 
• Income taxes - I earned a lot less in 2024, so our IRS bill (paying in April, 2025) is expected to be less.
• Utilities - we've tried to instill reasonable habits, but the boys are known to take longer showers, leave the lights on & the normal teenage things. 
• Dining out - 2024 was an expensive year for dining out, and I want us to make a more dedicated effort to trim this back. 
• Clothes - similarly, I don't need much with not working, and the boys are largely through their growth spurts. I do expect Nick to need some warmer clothes, depending on where he ends up for college. 

Areas where I expect us to spend more in 2025:

• College. This one is a no brainer, but with two boys in college, we will definitely be spending more. We will use our 529s to cover the 2025 expenses, but will need to start cash flowing Sam's college in 2026. 
• Health. M picked up the cost for all of our health insurance 1/2 way through the year, and the full run rate of this in 2025 will be higher than we paid in 2024. 

Areas that I expect to stay (roughly) the same in 2025:

• Travel. It was a huge chunk of our 2024 budget, and I'm expecting that to stay the same in 2025. We have a trip to Spain in April, and our 20th anniversary trip to Italy in the fall. Between those, we'll have trips to/from my family, college transportation trips for both boys, and likely another skiing trip. Potentially some college tours as well for Nick. We will continue to do what we can to optimize miles, points & perks to keep the expenses as reasonable as possible. 
• Everything else. We have a few additional categories (gifts, charitable donations, etc) that I'll expect to remain the same year over year. 

What about you? Are you looking to change any of your budget categories for 2025, and make any increases or decreases? 

December Goal Recap

 I am always too optimistic about what I can get done in December. At least I'm consistently ambitious? ;-) 

Financial:

• Save $2000 - no, and we depleted our savings by about $9k for our property taxes. It's not that I forgot about the taxes, just the timing as it related to goal setting. 
• Mini freezer clean out:
• 1/2 of the pizza in the freezer - no progress
• Use up a bunch of tater tots from the restaurant sized bag M found on mark down - yes, we used a bunch!
• Use up a package of naan bread - not in December, but since used for chicken shawarma
• Sell fitness watch - nope, but plan to do this in January
• Sell/give away all expiring travel rewards - done, with one remaining for a January flight

Family:

• Finish all holiday shopping/wrapping/baking - yes!
• Have a fantastic holiday season with the family - yes!
• Book travel for spring girls trip & trip to Spain with M - yes!
• 2 dates with M - yes!

Fitness:

• 15 strength workouts - 14/15
• No S diet 15 days - 6/15
• Have eye exam (required for a medicine I take) - yes
• Maintain weight during the holiday season - definite no, although I haven't weighed in yet. Give me strength!

Personal:

• Complete daily tasks 20 times - more like 10 in December
• Get together with friends - yes, hiking, workout classes & coffee
• Declutter 25 items - yes
• Network 2x - yes
• Continue exploring jobs - yes, although I stopped mid-December
• Spend time on volunteer role - yes
• Come up with more structure in my daily routine - no

Hopefully you had a more productive December than I did! How did you do with your goals? Any big wins,  or tasks you are carrying over to January?

January Goals

 This is normally a day for fitness recaps, but the quick version of that is: we were skiing early last week, and then I got sick & basically didn't do much. Oh, and plenty of treats were consumed. Consider yourself up to speed! ;-) 

On to goals for January.

Financial:

• Continue to pay for Sam's college expenses
• Work on finding a new job
• Earn $300 in side hustle
• Monthly freezer/pantry challenge:
• Use up 1/2 of the freezer pizza
• Use 1 can of coconut milk
• Figure out what to do with all of the red curry paste
• Make second property tax payment (majority from savings, cash flow $1500 of it).

Family:

• Decide if we need to do any college tours for Nick
• Optimize points, perks & miles for travel. Track value over the year.
• Plan Spain trip details & start looking at Italy options.
• Begin remodel discussions
• One date night with M

Fitness:

• Lose 2 lbs
• Strength train 15 days
• No S diet 15 days
• Meditate 10 times
• Try a new workout

Personal:

• Language lessons 10 times
• Declutter 50 items from the house
• Look at college classes (for me)
• Get together iwth friends x2
• Play pickleball x1
• For my "Try something new & uncomfortable" & "Say yes to more adventures" goals, start looking at opportunities for these

What about you? What are you hoping to accomplish in January?

Menu Plan Sunday

 Trying to get back in action, after a week+ without a formal menu plan. Having a menu really helps me feel more organized, and of course keeps the budget in check & avoids the "oh no, what are we eating" debacle that sometimes occurs without a plan at 4:30 pm. 

• Friday - grilled chicken & salad
• Saturday - chicken shawarma
• Sunday - Korean beef & rice
• Monday - crockpot chicken & dumplings
• Tuesday - leftover shawarma
• Wednesday - leftover beef & rice
• Thursday - leftover chicken & dumplings
• Friday - TBD, as Nick has a soccer game

What about you? What's on your post-holiday menu this week? Any new recipes you'd recommend?

2024 Spend Breakout

 I always find it useful to compare our spend year on year, as well as by category. Unfortunately, I don't have our full 2023 spend data (the data was on my work laptop & I no longer have access to it), but I do know we spent significantly less than we did in 2023, which is always a positive. 

A few notes about the below, which is a categorization of our total net spend. It doesn't include: savings, standard tax withholding, charitable giving or retirement, as all of that is automatically deducted. Our house is paid off. 

• 1.97% - gas
• 2.36% - dining out
• 3.14% - addition to Nick's 529
• 3.30% - insurance (house & cars)
• 3.48% - utilities
• 4.05% - groceries
• 4.32% - house
• 5.64% - cars 
• 5.87% - everything not categorized in another way on this list
• 7.94% - boys (minus college spending)
• 13.69% - 2 quarters of college
• 15.93% - travel
• 27.31% - taxes (property taxes plus additional money to the IRS, as we didn't have enough withheld)
  

Based on this and our expected household changes in 2025, we will be updating our budget. It's always very useful to see how well we did against our planned budget. Do you track your finances? Any big learnings this year? 

Frugal Friday

 This is a bit of an abbreviated edition, as we were largely traveling. As I'm sure you can guess, taking four teens skiing (plus two adults) is nowhere near frugal! But, we had an amazing time, & no regrets at all (other than the rain for the first half of the trip). Unfortunately, we haven't figured out how to control the weather yet. ;-) 

Saving on things we buy

• I was able to apply a "Guest of Honor" award to the second hotel room (1st half of our stay), which ensured all of us could eat breakfast for free during our stay. Breakfast was a large buffet & very nice, and pricey. It would have been ~$250/day otherwise! Insane pricing, but I won't complain about free. 
• Bought lunch at Costco (drive up) & In & Out (drive home), both of which were so much cheaper than on mountain food. 

Earning money

• I was able to cash out some survey response money (Prolific), and made $25
• I sold Sam's old bookshelf on FB, for $45.
• I gifted M's coworker a United upgrade (a business upgrade from Tokyo to Newark, which is extremely pricey, if you are paying out of pocket) & he gave us a $150 gift card as a thank you. 

Avoiding spending

• M & I ate a free dinner on NYE, courtesy of the hotel we were staying at. It was nothing to write home about, but neither of us were particularly hungry, as we were both coming down with a head cold. 

Eating what we have

• Brought tons of snacks for the teen skiers, and they ate plenty in the room, on the drive, on the  slopes, etc.
• Made everyone a big breakfast this morning, before they took off for: bowling, soccer practice & the rock climbing gym. 
• Managed to eat almost everything, despite being on two trips. Just a tiny bit of food waste (an apple, a pear & a handful of tater tots.) 
• This should be under the category of "drinking" what we have, but M & I shared wine at one of our ski dinners, and didn't finish the bottle. We brought it back to our room, and kept it in the fridge. We had a toast before our NYE dinner, with the remainder of the wine. 

For others

• Gave away a fancy NYE goodie bag from the party we attended. 
• I was drying ski clothes at the hotel laundry & gave away both change & laundry pods for other guests who needed them. 
• Dropped off Persian goodies (from my MIL) as a New Years gift for my neighbor, who cooks a lot of Persian food. 

What about you? Any wins to share?

2025 Goals

2024 was quite a ride! Who knows what 2025 will bring, but likely our empty nester era, hopefully a new job for me, and potentially a large remodel on our house. I'm still thinking about what goals I want to set for the year ahead, but here's where I'm at so far:

Financial:

• Continue to pay for both boys college expenses
• Get a new job
• Earn $3000 in side hustle
• Stay on top of food waste by doing monthly pantry or freezer challenges
• Spend less in the following categories: groceries, dining out, gas, boys "all", taxes, clothing, utilities. 
• Once I get a new job, figure out a revised savings target. This one is a bit on hold for specifics until I have that information. 

Family:

• Both boys successfully in college
• Optimize points, perks & miles for travel. Track value over the year.
• Plan & have two fantastic & (reasonably) on budget trips to Europe. Spain in March, Italy in October. 
• Figure out/plan for remodel
• Enjoy Nick's senior year

Fitness:

• Lose 10 lbs
• Strength train 100 days
• No S diet 150 days
• Average 12,000 steps/day
• Meditate 100 times
• Try a new workout

Personal:

• Language lessons 100 times
• Declutter 500 items from the house
• Take a college class
• Get together with friends
• Get better at pickleball
• Try something new & uncomfortable
• Say yes to more adventures

Have you started thinking about your 2025 goals? What are your priorities that you want to focus on?

2024 Goals Recap

 Happy New Years!

Can you believe 2024 is over?! The year definitely had a lot of surprises, but I made reasonable progress against my goals for the year. Here's how I did.

Financial:

• Max Nick's 529 account - yes, although we parked most of it in a CD. Done. 
• Max our 401ks (standard contribution for me + M's catch up contribution) - done!
• Save the remainder of Sam's college expenses - done, thanks to my severance.
• Save another $100k in after tax investments - done, thanks to my severance.
• Earn $3,000 in side hustle - crushed this, with $7164 in side hustles this year. (I'll do a separate post about where this all came from.) 
• Set monthly pantry or freezer challenges - eh, I did fine on this. Some months were better than others, but generally, everything in our freezer/pantry is stuff we're using regularly, with a few exceptions. 

Family:

• Help Sam finalize his decision & transition to college - done!
• Get Nick through the college application process + SATs & AP tests for both boys - done!
• Optimize our points, perks, miles, to keep travel costs in check while enjoying travel - yes, and we saved a lot (over $15k)!
• Plan one fun activity per month with the boys - this was really hit or miss, but we went on three ski trips, went to a dude ranch & had a lot of fun with my family. We also went camping in Big Sur, which was awesome. 

Fitness:

• Stretch 2x/week - I stretch at my fitness class at least 3-4x/week. I wasn't very specific about this goal (and, should have been, in hindsight), but I'm more flexible than I was last year. 
• Lose weight - ended the year at .25 lbs over my weight on the first of January. Wow. 
• Run 2 half marathons + Hood to Coast - I ran a half marathon, but lingering tendonitis hasn't allowed me to run regularly
• Continue to strength train regularly - definite win on this. I've gained a lot of muscle mass & have increased my strength training tremendously
• Follow the No S Diet - Nope. I've had a streak of good days or even weeks but then fell apart. 

Personal:

• Get together with friends 1x/month - for sure, and way more than that, with my more flexible schedule.
• Practice Farsi 100 times- I swapped this to Spanish & achieved this goal
• Declutter 500 items from the house - I got rid of 735 items!
• Learn to play pickle ball - took pickle ball classes with M, he & I played a few times, I played with my mom, and have played with a friend. I'll take this as a win, although I'm not very good yet. 

What about you? How did you do with your 2024 goals?